Modi’s Kashmir Mantra: BJP makes new political moves in J&K with an eye on upcoming assembly elections

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of bringing a “saffron revolution” to Jammu & Kashmir was quickly explained as a reference to the spice and not BJP’s colours. But the fact that he has now made two visits to the state since taking over as prime minister underlines its importance in BJP’s emerging political calculus. In the 2014 general election, BJP won three of the state’s six Lok Sabha seats and unexpectedly emerged with the single largest vote share of 32.4%, ahead of Congress (22.9%), PDP (20.5%) and National Conference (11.1%). The party benefited from high turnouts in Jammu, Udhampur and Ladakh and if Lok Sabha voting patterns get replicated in the assembly elections due early next year, BJP is ahead in 29 of the state’s 87 assembly constituencies.

Home minister Rajnath Singh raised expectations around Modi’s second trip to Kashmir by once again reviving the Vajpayee formula of insaniyat as a basis for dialogue and a permanent solution in the state. Modi, speaking to soldiers in Kargil, condemned Pakistan’s proxy war following terror strikes in Pulwama district which injured seven BSF troopers. But he chose to emphasise one theme in his political outreach: development.

Modi recounted a lesson he had learnt when visiting Kutch soon after first becoming Gujarat chief minister, when a local delegation told him not to focus on border issues and Pakistani intransigence in the frontier region, but on matters that directly affected people and their livelihoods. He thus chose to project himself as the face of the wider theme of economic development that won his party its biggest mandate in the 2014 election, leaving Amit Shah to focus on the cut and thrust of local politics by attacking the National Conference-led government.

Despite the DNA of Congress and National Conference being quite similar, Congress has chosen to cut its ties with National Conference by putting up candidates of its own in all 87 constituencies. This suggests a serious governance deficit on the part of the incumbent government which BJP would be keen to exploit. With his call for ‘Mission 44+’ Amit Shah has already indicated plans for a saffron victory — if not a saffron revolution — in forthcoming assembly elections. Modi’s development pitch will be central to this poll campaign.

This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.